A Vietnam Vet friend of a Vietnam Vet friend of mine is a cutter. Whatever theraputic interventions he's gone through have had sporadic effiveness.
And, Luke, what about Opus Dei members that must that corporal mortification fandango?
http://www.odan.org/archives_corporal.htm
http://www.odan.org/resources_beyond.htm
http://www.mond.at/opus.dei/opus.dei.uo.faq.html
http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=opusdei
(Oh my God, Ian Paisley Dot.Org! How many Catholics did his thugs kill?)
http://www.bureauandthemole.com/talkback.php?rfnbr=0 (On Robert Hansen, along w/ Clinton FBI Director, Freeh, in Opus Dei.)
http://www.vinland.org/scamp/institute/dsh.html Cutters
By RAZOR
Do you cut yourself with knives, razor blades, broken glass, needles, nails, paper clips, pins, scissors, tacks, anything you can get your hands on? Do you bang your head against walls? Punch walls till your hand goes all bruised and bloody? Do you throw yourself through panes of glass? Do you ever set you hair and/or skin on fire? Do you swallow batteries so they'll open up inside you, burning your organs with battery acid? Do you swallow broken glass, razor blades or needles? Do you ever hit your self with blunt objects? Do you punch yourself in the stomach, legs, head? Do you try to break your own bones? Expose your body to extreme weather conditions without wearing protective clothing so you'll get frostbite or sunburn or chills and fevers? Stare directly into the sun until it nearly blinds you? Do you pull out your hair? Bite or scratch yourself bloody? Do you ever feel extremely anxious and/or numb to the world for periods of time until you hurt your body to break out of it, to feel alive, to feel anything at all? Do you interfere with the healing of your wounds? Do you wear turtlenecks and long sleeves to hide the evidence?
If you do any of these things, you are NOT the only one!
1.9 million Americans do these things, and do them repeatedly, some for years at a time, according to one conservative estimate. 1 Another source says 750 of every 100,000 people in the U.S. self-injure. 2 These people are NOT CRAZY. These people are NOT SUICIDAL, although a third of them expect to be dead within five years. They suffer from what is called by some "Deliberate Self Harm Syndrome," by others "complex post-traumatic stress disorder" (PTSD), "Repetitive Self-Harm Syndrome" or "multiple personality/dissociative identity disorders" (MPD/DID). Many of these people simply call themselves "cutters," and some simply call what they do SI, or self-injury, and use SI as a verb, as in "I SI once a month".
The majority of cutters are women, between the ages of 13 and 30, but there are cutters of every age and gender. The majority of cutters have been sexually molested and/or physically abused during their childhood. Many are survivors of incest.